Chapter Text
Baz
Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch was not your average coffee-shop worker. He was quite possibly the first person in his family to ever set foot inside a coffee shop, let alone work in one, aside from his aunt Fiona who owned the very establishment he was reluctantly employed in. Emphasis on reluctantly, since there was literally anything Baz would rather do than work a coffee machine, wash up and, worst of all, talk to customers. However, after his father had proclaimed that he wasn’t paying for any of his “gay stuff” (“dad, all my stuff is ‘gay stuff”) or his football kit (and come on, homophobic parents were usually interested in their child’s sporting prowess but no, Baz’s dad wanted him to be a doctor. Typical.) Baz really needed some cash. Which was why he was struggling to open the shop door whilst freezing to death at five o’clock in the morning. He reminded himself to breathe. Yeah, it was his first day, and yeah, he hadn’t much of a clue what was going on but all he had to do was set up the food and mind the till until Penny, his irritatingly intelligent co-worker turned up at nine. Penny had even given him a handwritten handbook to refer to if anything happened.
Sadly, the handbook didn’t cover how to deal with attractive boys passed out under one of your tables.
Baz blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, but no, a boy with a mop of curls was curled up in the corner of the café, snoring slightly. Was there a procedure for this? Should Baz wake him up? Walking over, he gingerly prodded the boy with his foot, but to no avail. Just as he’d given up and was awkwardly sweeping around him, the boy stirred, and opened his eyes with a groan, blinking unfocusedly at Baz.
Baz pointed the end of his brush at the boy, backing away slightly. Was he a tramp? A druggie? He didn’t really look like either.
“Who…” Baz began.
“I’m Simon Snow,” the boy replied, still evidently half asleep. Simon Snow, what a pretentious arse. Was Baz supposed to know who he was? Was he so entitled that he thought his name could excuse him from something that was probably illegal (okay, Baz hadn’t a clue whether crashing at coffee shops was illegal, but it wasn’t good).
“What,” he spat “Are you doing?”
“Err,” the boy replied, attempting to sit upright and banging his head on the bottom of the table whilst doing so, “Well…”
“Wow, what a way with words,” Baz deadpanned, glancing at the clock. He had already wasted precious minutes where he should have been putting the croissants in the oven. “You’re going to get me fired on my first day, so kindly leave.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy – Snow - spluttered, “It’s just, Penny sometimes lets me stay a bit late and yesterday she must have let me stay a lot late, cause she got a call from her boyfriend in America, and she basically, er, left.”
So Snow was Penny’s friend, of course. Baz was going to have words with her.
“Out.” He said, poking Snow with the brush. Thankfully he obliged, packing what looked like textbooks and hastily scribbled notes into a tatty rucksack and stumbling out of the door. His hair was sticking up at the back.
Baz sighed. Talk about a bad first day.
If the morning had been bad, the afternoon was shaping up to be much worse. Penny, now thankfully arrived and chastised for allowing random blond boys to sleep in the café, had warned Baz about the after-school rush, but he was still very unprepared. Not only did they have all of the tired commuters from the nearby tube station, but also all the kids leaving school, including the whole football team who laughed at the depths to which their “star striker” had sunk. Baz darted back and forth, shouting orders to Penny who worked the coffee machine like a fiend, grabbing muffins and attempting to spell everyone’s names right as he wrote them on their takeaway cups (he gave up on that pretty quickly).
Just as the last sweaty footballer walked away, and Baz had breathed a sigh of relief, he heard a familiar voice.
“One large white chocolate mocha and my usual,” Baz turned from the coffee machine to see Snow giving his order to Penny. Fuck.
“White chocolate mocha, please Baz,” Penny said, earning a glare. “With that amount of sugar intake I’m surprised that you can collapse asleep under tables, Snow.” Baz sneered, pulling the handle on the machine a little too hard.
Snow opened his mouth as if to give a retort but decided against it, taking a seat at a nearby table, a stray curl falling over his face. Baz definitely wasn’t staring. His “usual” appeared to be one of the sour cherry scones, which to be fair, were amazing.
Shit. The coffee cup overflowed, and Baz tried not to make a scene as he mopped it up. Slamming the lid on he moved to put it on the boy’s table, before Penny cleared her throat. “Oi, Baz, write his name!” she whispered, and grabbing the pen off her, Baz scrawled “Snow” in aggressive capitals before marching over and putting it on his table with such force that it spilt a little.
Snow glared at Baz, but as the coffee cup touched his lips his expression changed to one of shocked amazement. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, “This is amazing! Way better than how you do it, Penny-no offence.”
He’d gotten milk froth on his top lip. Baz wanted to lick it off. Oh, shit. He opted for ignoring Snow and loudly washing up. The boy and Penny were already engaged in conversation, stressing over A level homework and Baz definitely wasn’t listening to them. He just couldn’t help noticing that Snow and Penny were both in their last year at his old school (how had Baz not noticed Snow before?), Snow was studying maths, computing and psychology and had quite possibly the worst handwriting of any person Baz had seen.
He couldn’t help feel a stab of bitterness every time they mentioned universities. Relax, Pitch, he told himself, just because you failed to get a single offer and fucked up your A Levels doesn’t mean you have to take it out on everyone else. Stabbing himself on a fork for the third time in about ten minutes, he realised what he really should be worrying about was the fact that Penny was going back to school in two weeks and then Baz would have to manage the café for most of the day.
Snow chatted to Penny until they closed the café, drawing glares, pointed coughs and much slamming of plates from Baz. The girl was supposed to be helping him, for fuck’s sake, not leaving Baz to tidy up. A small, and probably more logical, part of his brain told him that his bitterness was probably do to with the fact the idiot who fell asleep under his table hadn’t talked, or even looked at Baz once. Baz sighed. The handbook definitely didn’t cover getting crushes on your customers.
Hair a mess and flushed from the cold, Snow came into the shop every day, armed with seemingly endless notes and a serious craving for coffee. Baz still wrote “Snow” on his cups, Snow still kept ignoring him, and Baz became more and more certain that the boy hated him. Hate? Fine. If the boy wanted to be a petty idiot, Baz was more than happy to sink to his level. Whenever he noticed Snow needed his coffee most (usually Monday morning), he’d take ages, measuring out the exact amount of milk and drawing out increasingly intricate designs in the froth until Snow’s incessant tapping on the table got too much for him.
“Oh for God’s sake!” Snow finally exclaimed. Penny was off duty, meaning Baz, unregulated, had stretched out the coffee making time to four minutes, fifty-seven seconds.
“Something the matter?” Baz asked languidly.
“You…that fucking….” He trailed off. “Cat got your tongue, Snow?”
“Fuck off, Basilton,” the boy snapped, ears burning.
“What? How did you-” Baz spluttered.
“Penny told me,” he smirked, leaning over and grabbing his coffee out of Baz’s hands, “Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch – you posh twat.”
“How dare-“
“Oh, give me a break,” Snow spat, free hand balled into a fist, before turning and slamming the door behind him with such force the hinges rattled.
Baz let out a breath and sank to the floor behind the till. Snow was a fucking fire. He felt like he should run up to him, calm him down, like a referee at a particularly rowdy football match. He wouldn’t. He was just going to poke him until he went off, again and again, because that’s what he did, wasn’t it? Well, it wasn’t like he could ask him out. Baz had definitely heard conversations about Snow’s girlfriend, Agnes? Agatha. Agatha Wellbelove, who was he kidding. Baz had already stalked her on Facebook, and found that Snow’s type was blonde. And female.
“Oi, fucking numpty!” Baz turned to see his Aunt Fiona leaning over him. She was even more intimidating from this angle.
“Hey,” Baz said, hoping he didn’t sound too lovelorn.
“Get off the floor and help me with these boxes,” Fiona barked, and Baz obliged. One thing he could rely on Fiona for was not forcing him into conversations about his feelings, for which he was very grateful.
“Where’s Bunce?”
“University interview,” Baz replied.
“And that idiot who always hangs out around here?”
“Sim – Snow? He, err, just left.”
“Baz,” she said, slyly, “Are you blushing?”
Baz made a non-committal grunt, feeling his cheeks burn up more.
“You are! You like him! Of fucking course, he’s so your type; curly hair, around two brain cells, a right bastard. Is he the captain of the football team too?”
“Fuck off! I don’t like –“ Baz stopped himself, sighed, “Okay, so I find him attractive, so what? He’s an idiot, with a girlfriend, who hates me. And he’s straight. And stupid.”
“Whatever,” Fiona sighed, “Just hurry up and make me a coffee.”
It was Penny’s last day before she went back to school and she was sitting on the counter, knee-stockinged legs kicking at Baz. The two had developed a sort of friendship, because Penny was smart, and confident and happy to do the washing up for Baz (after his complaints about the feel of soap on his fingers). She’d be the sort of person to have as a great evil accomplice, if Baz ever needed one.
“Right, so for the last time,” Penny said, in her Serious Voice (the one she used with the “misogynistic twats” of the football team).
“Don’t leave the milk out to go sour, don’t forget to bake the pastries in the morning, don’t refuse to serve people ‘just because’, and don’t hate on Snow.”
“Simon.”
Baz sighed, “Simon. I can do like, three of those.”
“Come on, give my friend a break! What can you possibly hate him for?”
“It’s not hate, Penny, it’s a rivalry. We’re mortal enemies.”
“You’re idiots,” she sighed, kicking him in the chest.
“No, he’s an –“ he stopped, feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket. The only person who would ever call him at this hour was his dad. “Sorry, I’ve got to get this.”
“Father,” he said, picking up the phone and darting into the back room, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I just found out your cousin received an offer for medicine. At Oxford.”
Oh shit. Oh shitting fuck.
“Where was your application, Basilton? The deadline for medicine applications was in October. October!” His voice had raised a decibel, “Where the fuck was your application?”
“I didn’t give mine in.” Baz’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
“What did you just say?”
“I didn’t give mine in. I don’t want to do medicine.” His throat was getting tight. He begged himself to pull himself together.
“How dare you? How fucking dare you? I let you take a year off, despite my reservations, because I think you’re going to work, and apply yourself.”
“Maybe if you actually took an interest in my life you would realise I’d done no work! And that I don’t want to follow the shitty plan you’d set out for me before I was even born!”
Tears crept out of Baz’s eyes. There was silence at the other end of the phone.
“Don’t bother coming home tonight.” “Fine.” He hung up the phone, then released all his breath in one shaky sob.
“Baz?” Penny called, “You okay in there?”
Brushing the tears out of his eyes, Baz stood up, feeling volatile.
“Fine, I’ll be out in a second.”
Pulling himself together, he stepped out into the shop. Penny managed to keep him busy for most of the morning, obviously sensing that something was wrong and chatting to him to keep him occupied. It was around eleven when a familiar scruffy head stepped into the café.
“Morning Penny! Ready for school tomorrow?” Oh Jesus, the boy was extra chipper this morning, like he’d already had his caffeine dose.
“Ugh, as if,” Penny said.
Baz was at the till, glowering.
“I’ll have an expresso and my usual. And a smile, Baz.”
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“A smile! You look like you have a literal raincloud over your head.”
Baz’s shoulders tensed, “Fuck off! Just fuck off! You don’t know jack shit about my life.”
“Baz,” Penny said in a warning tone.
“Jesus, Baz, calm the fuck down.” Snow was grinning. The idiot. Baz leaned further forward, getting so close he could feel the whisper of Snow’s breath on his face.
“No,” he spat, “Get your pretentious arse out of my café.”
“Pretentious arse?” The boy’s eyebrows furrowed. “How dare you? You don’t know jack shit about my life!” He could see his pupils dilating, the ring of blue around them growing smaller. Baz should not be turned on by this. But he’s disturbed, ask anyone.
“I know you’re an idiot,” the sneer came naturally to Baz now.
“You’re pathetic,” Baz liked the way he spat out the word. He wanted to grab him and kiss him to death.
“Okay, boys, enough!” Penny interrupted, pulling Baz back. “Simon, here’s your coffee. Baz, sit in the back room until you’ve calmed down enough to not be an idiot.”
Eyes fixed on Snow until the last minute, Baz turned and shut himself in the storeroom.
He tried to calm himself down, taking deep breaths, concentrating on the room around him. It didn’t work. It didn’t work because recently, whenever his dad had shouted at him or the football team had laughed at him there’d only been one thing that would slow his breathing. Blue eyes. Bronze curls. That Simon Snow was the stupidest human alive. And he was hopelessly in love with him.